Life

The future Archimandrite Luke was born November 10, 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His emigrant parents, Peter and Olga Murianka, raised him in the Orthodox Church from infancy. He received the name of the Holy Apostle Mark in baptism and faithfully attended the Orthodox Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Philadelphia.

He became acquainted with Holy Trinity Monastery while a student at Hartwick College. Upon acceptance and arrival at Holy Trinity Seminary, he petitioned to become a novice in the Monastery. This was granted to him on the feast of St. Moses the Hungarian, whose true ethnicity was also Carpatho-Russian. Archbishop and later Metropolitan Laurus, of blessed repose, and also of Carpatho-Russian descent, received Mark as a novice.

As a novice he was given obediences in the garden by Fr. Hermogen, in the bookbindery, and later in the icon studio with the resident iconographer Archimandrite Cyprian, his first spiritual father. Fr. Luke attributes his monastic formation to Fr. Hermogen with a gratitude prevailing to this day. This current monastery abbot, seminary rector and dean, has received Synodal and administrative appointments once carried out by notable predecessors, of blessed repose Metropolitan Laurus, the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad Metropolitan Hilarion, and the previous dean of Holy Trinity Seminary Evgenii Iosifovich Klar. Currently teaching Patrology, he also writes articles on theology and literature. Most notable however is Fr. Luke’s increased involvement in English language publishing in the Monastery’s St. Job of Pochaev Press.
On May 21, 2008 he was elected abbot Holy Trinity Monastery. Since September 6, 2008, he is rector of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville.